All Reviews articles – Page 208
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ArticleTrio Arc
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Mario Pavone (double bass) Paul Bley (piano) Matt Wilson (drums)Composer: Various Mario Pavone and Paul Bley rekindle an old flame in this first collaboration for over 35 years, a free improvisation session with drummer Matt Wilson. The disc opens ...
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ArticleBaltzar: Complete works for unaccompanied violin
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Patrick Wood (violin)Composer: Baltzar British violin playing displayed few indigenous traits in the 17th century. It was influenced instead by Lullian French court music and foreign violinists such as German-born Thomas Baltzar (c.1631–63), who arrived in England (1656), ...
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ArticleThe Violin Virtuoso Collection. Works by Sarasate, Wieniawski, Bloch, Saint-Saëns & Paganini
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Franco Mezzena (violin) Maria Conti Gallenti (piano)Composer: Sarasate, Wieniawski, Bloch, Saint-Saëns & PaganiniTo present an album of virtuoso showstoppers by Sarasate, Wieniawski, Saint-Saëns et al – especially one with such well-worn favourites as the Carmen Fantasy, Scherzo–Tarantelle and Havanaise – is to ...
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ArticleMartinu: Suite concertante (first & second versions), Rhapsody–Concerto
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Bohuslav Matoušek (violin/viola) Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Christopher Hogwood (conductor)Composer: Martinu Martinu is a composer whose versatility never ceases to surprise, even though (like Hindemith) he is sometimes unfairly spurned as being over-productive, stylistically disparate and lacking the distinct idiom of ...
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ArticleDutilleux: Violin Concerto ‘L’arbre des songes’. Debussy: La mer. Ravel: La valse
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Dmitry Sitkovetsky (violin) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss Jansons (conductor)Composer: Dutilleux, Debussy, Ravel Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto L’arbre des songes has been quite well served on disc since Isaac Stern gave the world premiere in 1985. This latest recording demonstrates ...
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ArticleLachenmann: Gran Torso, Reigen der Seliger Geister, Grido
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Arditti String QuartetComposer: Lachenmann True to form, Helmut Lachenmann treats not only the players but their instruments as physical, living bodies. These pieces of wood breathe, chatter, fart, snore and sigh in a soap opera of musical personalities scraping ...
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ArticleLiquid Metal Dreaming
Musicians: Laurie Scott Baker (double bass/electric upright bass/percussion) Robert Evans (crwth, tambura, lyre, fiddle, voice)Composer: VariousThe prospect of listening to over an hour of double bass music (adorned with an unlikely array of percussion, lyres and vocal harmonics), played entirely on open strings or using natural harmonics, filled ...
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ArticleLudi fecundus
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Stephen Nachmanovitch (electric violin)Composer: Nachmanovitch ‘Ludi fecundus’ – Latin for ‘fertile play’ or ‘the game that creates the world’– comprises short improvisations inspired by creation myths. Stephen Nachmanovitch, a published author and lecturer in improvisation across the arts, has ...
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ArticleFeldman: The Viola in My Life I-IV
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Marek Konstantinowicz (viola) Cikada Ensemble, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Christian Eggen (conductor)Composer: Feldman The comparison is often made between Morton Feldman’s large spaces of sound nearing silence and the washy canvases of his friend Mark Rothko, but the ...
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ArticleShostakovich: Piano Trios no.1 in C minor op.8 & no.2 in E minor op.67, Piano Quintet in G minor op.57
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: London Mozart Trio, London Mozart Chamber Ensemble Composer: ShostakovichShostakovich’s chamber music is well represented in the catalogue, but certain interpreters outshine others in prising out the ironies and ambiguities that often underlie. Best here is the pre-war Piano ...
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ArticleDale: Suite op.2, Introduction and Andante for six violas op.5, English Dance, Phantasy op.4
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Roger Chase (viola) Hannah Shaw (viola) Fiona Opie (viola) Thomas Beer (viola) Rumen Cvetkov (viola) Karel Coninx (viola) Michiko Otaki (piano)Composer: Dale According to Frederick Corder, his teacher at the Royal Academy of Music, Benjamin Dale (1885–1943) wrote ...
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ArticleElgar: Cello Concerto in E minor op.85. Myaskovsky: Cello Concerto in C minor op.66
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Jamie Walton (cello) Philharmonia Orchestra, Alexander Briger (conductor)Composer: Elgar, Myaskovsky Young British cellist Jamie Walton has already recorded Saint-Saens’s concertos with the Philharmonia and Alexander Briger. Now two years on he turns to two more introspective works: Elgar’s ...
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ArticleVivaldi: 12 Trio Sonatas op.1
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Enrico Gatti (violin) Rossella Croce (violin) Judith-Maria Becker (cello) Monica Pustilnik (archlute) Guido Morini (harpsichord/organ)Composer: Vivaldi This double disc is pure delight from start to finish, and surely a collector’s edition. Twelve sonatas from Vivaldi’s op.1 might sound ...
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ArticleMedtner: Complete Works for Violin and Piano vol.2: Violin Sonatas no.1 in B minor op.21 & no.2 in G major op.44, 2 Canzonas with Dances op.43
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Laurence Kayaleh (violin) Paul Stewart (piano)Composer: Medtner One of the greatest admirers of Nikolai Medtner (1880–1951) was Rachmaninoff, who recognised his colleague’s formal tautness, deep Russian sensibility and exile’s nostalgia, something they shared when living abroad after the ...
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ArticleRight Through the Bone. Röntgen: Piano Quintet in A minor op.100, Viola Sonata in C minor, Sextet in G major, Trio in E flat major for clarinet, viola & piano
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: ARC Ensemble (Artists of the Royal Conservatory, Canada)Composer: Röntgen Julius Röntgen (1855–1932), younger brother of Wilhelm who discovered X-rays and won a Nobel Prize in 1901, was a composer out of his time. All four works on this ...
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ArticleBach: Solo Cello Suites BWV1007–12
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Anne Gastinel (cello)Composer: Bach I have rarely been as aware of the impact of the recording level as with this release, where I felt the interpretative tenor was shaped by the ensuing acoustic. Generating the ambiance ...
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ArticleBrahms: Piano Trios in B major op.8 (revised version) & in C minor op.101, ‘FAE’ Scherzo in C minor
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Guarneri Trio PragueComposer: BrahmsNot many recordings of the Brahms trios have caused a stir in the Potter household over the years. This new disc of the first and last trios comes near to upsetting the status quo, but on reflection ...
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ArticleVivaldi: The Four Seasons. Bach: Concerto in D minor for two violins BWV1043
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Pavel Š porcl (violin) Prague PhilharmoniaComposer: Vivaldi, Bach Pavel Šporcl offers the converse to the self-styled ‘period’ performances of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with an approach that employs a wide dynamic range and tempos that are tantalisingly fluid. He ...
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ArticleMendelssohn: String Quartets in E flat major op.12, in E minor op.44 no.2 & in F minor op.80
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: New Zealand QuartetComposer: Mendelssohn Of this group, only violist Gillian Ansell was born in New Zealand. The others, two Americans and a Canadian, have taken the country’s citizenship and the ensemble has been in its present form since ...
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ArticleFranck: Violin Sonata in A major. Shostakovich: Violin Sonata op.134
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Sergey Khachatryan (violin) Lusine Khachatryan (piano)Composer: Franck, Shostakovich Armenian Sergey Khachatryan won the 8th Sibelius Competition at the age of 15, and five years later carried off first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels – both top ...
